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Hello my faithful Cardshark readers and buyers! I’m back with another lesson for multiplayer mayhem. I often write about casual chaos deckbuilding and some of the pitfalls that might appear in front of you, whether you know it or not. I’ve written about obstinate decisions that can be made that just turn out to be straight up wrong (The Evolution of Words). I’ve written about taking an old random boring pointless deck and giving it a focus (Pinpointing a Purpose). I’ve talked a couple times about taking a dueling deck and retooling it for multiplayer while keeping with the spirit of the original (Layin’ the Smack Down, Discard in Two Different Flavors). I’ve talked about building around a crappy symmetrical card by breaking the symmetry (Working It to Your Advantage). I’ve talked about the problem of dilution, which comes with building lots of decks (Civic Beautification Project). I’ve talked about realizing that those awesome secondary combos that are scattered throughout your decks are sometimes best left in the binder, now matter how much fun they might be (Pick Your Poison).

If you’ll notice, all of these articles involve some sort of conscious decisions made during the deckbuilding process. But nowhere does it cover the sudden realization that what you’ve been doing all this time is really stupid and kind of pointless. Well that’s going to change right here. Someone recently pointed out that one my new decks was doing this. I saw the new auras in Ravnica that had comes-into-play abilities, and I instantly fell in love. I’ve always loved creature enchantments. Who doesn’t love Unholy Strength

, you’re out two cards and they’re only out one. There’s some elementary card disadvantage for you. This is bad, just in case you missed it.

But the new Ravnica auras circumvent that little problem by having an ability that happens as soon as they hit play, and that is a truly beautiful thing. I might even pull a Mark Rosewater and call it an elegant solution. So if someone Bolts your Black Knight

, and I knew the deck just had to be built. So I messed around some, and I decided that in order to be really useful, this deck would have to include white for the three cards I just mentioned, red for Galvanic Arc

Let me just go on record right here as saying that I really love this deck. It was seriously fun to play. Somehow, I never got mana-screwed while playing it. Well, as far as color is concerned. There was one time where the land just all decided to clump somewhere other than where I was drawing. Other than that, it worked like a charm, even going so far as to win a great big game of Assassin that spanned two round tables pulled together to make room for everyone. The only real problem with the deck was that it didn’t have any form of recursion. And anyone that reads my articles should know that I really need some recursion in my life. Multiplayer is just too long and chaotic to lose something forever in the graveyard, because it’s so simple to get something into the graveyard in the first place.

There are just so many fun things to do with this deck. Putting Flickerform

meant that I could Flick it out and deal three damage with the Arc and get another Arc to do three more. I won the big Assassin game by Flicking out a Mage with three Arcs on it during every turn I could afford it. That’s nine damage every time, and I usually managed to do it twice before my turn came back around. If I found a better target for my Followed Footsteps

. Early in the game I could put the Mark on my Wayfinder or Carven to get another land or another card.

But as I made a Magic Online sale here on Cardshark one night, my friend and Two-Headed Giant partner Brian popped up and suggested that I come watch his game. So I did, of course. If your other head asked you to come watch a game, you would too. When I got to his game, I saw a familiar site. There was an Auratouched Mage

. I was amazed. He said he liked my deck so much that he made his own version of it. I must admit I was flattered, and that pretty much overshadowed any sort of analysis I might have done.

The next time the dorks gathered, we discussed this MTGO deck of Brian’s. He reminded me that he had no green in his deck, and I was again amazed. I was amazed because I didn’t see how he could pull it off. Then, suddenly, everything clicked. Look again at the decklist above. What does green really do besides get me some extra mana? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Well, that’s not true. It does completely screw the mana base. The deck is three colors with a fourth splash! Holy crap, was my brain not working when I built it? Those black permanent markers from work must have been seriously doing a number on me. I really think that I was just so happy to finally have a set of Birds that I really wanted to put them somewhere, whether it was necessary or not. I mean I’ve only wanted that particular set for about…6 years now. But I realized that removing the green would smooth the mana base considerably and give me 12 slots for improving on the theme of the deck. Somewhere along the line I also realized that I had made the deck Ravnica Block without any sort of reason.

, who flips to become Autumn-Tail, Kitsune Sage. With a lousy ONE MANA I can completely change the course of the game. If someone declares an attack on me, I can toss this Faith’s Fetters onto their big scary thing. I can move a Flickerform

at the last second to bounce something completely unexpected. This was exactly what the deck needed – another neat trick!

I found myself with a slight problem though. All twelve cards I took out were creatures, and I had just added in four walls and two utility creatures that were never meant to attack. The deck needed some offense. I decided that Dimir Guildmage

s too, because I needed some early offense, and the lifegain is just a nice little added touch. Plus, they’re new cards, and you’ve just got to use the new cards!

After a bit of judicious fidgeting with card ratios and whatnot, I found that I still had two holes left. I decided to go with two of the new Magemarks. I really love the Magemarks. For those that don’t know, they don’t just give an ability to the creature that they’re attached to. They give some sort of ability to ALL of your enchanted creatures. If you have five creatures out, and each one of them has a different Magemark on it, all five of them get the abilities that each Magemark bestows. They’re like Slivers but nowhere near as broken! I can see them being a 5-color deck in the future if I ever get bored enough. There’s a way to use the Birds of Paradise

has the first strike covered, so the red one was pointless. The green one is more for an attacking deck, which this deck really isn’t, so that was out. The black one is really awesome, bestowing +1/+1 and a Raise Dead

effect for any enchanted creature that dies, but it’s the wrong color. Wait, that doesn’t matter at all, I’ll be snatching auras out of the deck straight into play all the time. And the blue one effectively makes all my enchanted creatures unblockable (except by Walls, I mean Defenders) and gives them another +1/+1 bonus. So after much tweaking and messing around and brainstorming, here’s the latest decklist.

I seriously hope that none of you have anything really silly going on behind your back in one of your decks. Silly things that you put in there on purpose are perfectly acceptable. I really feel that removing the extraneous color has done nothing but help an already excellent deck. So until next time, my name is Inigo Montoya; you tapped my mana, prepare to die. I mean, enjoy your multiplayer Magic and watch out for those bizarre ideas that you never even noticed.

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